Viktor Kirilov

My name is Viktor Kirilov (25 y/o) and I have 3.5 years of professional experience as a C++ developer in both the games and the VFX industries.

15 months ago I quit my job at ChaosGroup to pursue personal projects - mainly a game (and game engine). I will write about that in future posts. Before that I worked in Gameloft for 1 year as a game programmer.

There is also my open source doctest testing framework which is me being a geek - I learned (and continue to do so) a lot about software development, open source, marketing and the internet from it, but it will in no way financially justify the 4+ months of work (and more to come) I’ve put into it.

Since the 1st of January 2017 I stopped drinking alcohol completely and started exercising regularly.

Since the 10th of February 2017 I stopped smoking weed for good because I lied to a friend - bailed on an agreed upon meeting being in no condition to talk about anything… I don’t remember the last time I had lied about anything - and suddenly I had compromised my integrity. I felt huge regret and shame. I hated myself for it. No more wasted life.

The purpose of this post

I would say that for the past 15 months I’ve worked about 5 or 6 months combined - and the rest was me gaming, growing up (no longer living with my parents) and catching up in life.

I got money for a maximum of 2 more years before I return to a normal job and given that I want to be building the tech along with the games - panic mode is long overdue. And I ain’t getting any younger either.

The last change that is required for my entrepreneurial dreams to come true is to commit to a work schedule - the hardest thing when working from home with no deadlines. This post will mark the start of precisely that.

I pledge to work at least 40 hours per week in the following manner:

Monday to Friday - at least 8 hours of work with no distractions.

Work starts in between 10 and 11 AM and ends between 7 and 8 PM - with roughly 1 hour for lunch - like a normal person.

Work outside of this range is OK. Whatever I do in the weekend is fine.

Sports should be done in the morning - and shall not mess with these working hours. If there is no time - simply skip the workouts - there shall be no compromises with the work ethic.

Anything that will interfere with this work schedule should be planned at least 1 day ahead - anything spontaneous must be rejected.

No reading of books during work hours.

No more excuses.

Being on a diet and thus not feeling energised for work is just a lousy excuse.

I am deeply unhappy when I’m not performing accordingly and living up to my own standards. Just existing is simply not good enough. Casual is not my style.